Clarissa Worthington Howe
Clarissa Worthington Howe is one of Jacky's fellow students at the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls and despises Jacky because she is a "common, low-born Tory". Throughout much of the series, Jacky considers Clarissa her mortal enemy, but their relationship becomes extremely layered. Appearance Clarissa is consistently described as beautiful. She is blonde, with wide blue eyes, and a fuller, curvier figure than Jacky's, which Jacky begrudges. Story Clarissa is one of Jacky's fellow students at the Lawson Peabody, and she resents Jacky immediately, thinking that Jacky is below her in every way, from Jacky's commonplace manners, to her low birth, to the way she speaks, and especially because of the scandal of Jacky running off to sea disguised as a boy. Clarissa's fiancée, Randall Trevelyne, leaves her because he is lusting after Jacky. She and Jacky end up putting aside their differences and helping each other in ''In the Belly of the Bloodhound'' for the good of the other girls of the Lawson Peabody. She, Jacky, and Dolley share command over the rest of the girls in order to organize an escape from the slaver, the Bloodhound, lest the unthinkable happen and they are sold into slavery to be sultan's wives across the Atlantic. In an attempt to fool the crew, Jacky kisses Clarissa on the lips, and notes that she has "been kissed by worse." In ''Boston Jacky'','' Clarissa falls into trouble with her father after she breaks off her betrothal to Randall and begs Jacky to bring her along on her next voyage. In New Orleans, Jacky delivers Clarissa to the House of the Rising Sun, into the (questionable) care of Mam'selle Claudelle de Bourbon. When Jacky finally returns to New Orleans to pick up Clarissa, she finds Clarissa horribly addicted to cocaine, and possibly other drugs, as suggested by Mam'selle. Once Clarissa is revived, she admits to Jacky that she doesn't want all the rich finery that she has, she merely wants the kind of freedom Jacky enjoys. During the voyage, Jacky teaches Clarissa how to operate a cannon and participate in an "action" on a ship. The two take to sleeping in the same bed, intending on keeping their distance, but awakening bundled in each other's arms. Clarissa is disowned by her family and becomes an actress at the Emerald Playhouse, where nightly performances of the Lawson Peabody girls' ordeal from ''In the Belly of the Bloodhound are put on. At the end of the book, Clarissa reveals she set things up so that Jaimy would think Jacky had forsaken him for other men, and in order to settle the debt Jacky owed her over Randall, Jacky would think that Jaimy had left her for Clarissa. Claiming that turnabout is fair play, Clarissa writes Jacky a letter stating that this was all an elaborate joke, and that she is now living with Mam'selle Claudelle de Bourbon in New Orleans, and is spending time with pirates, including the Lafitte brothers and Flaco Jiminez, who has offered Clarissa her own ship. Additionally, she is now dating Andrew Jackson. Clarissa eventually meets Richard Allen in New Orleans, and the two take an immediate shine to one another. They marry, and Clarissa, now an accomplished sailor and soldier, agrees to return home if her father will give her an entire battalion to command. He does. Once Jacky is captured by American Intelligence, Clarissa and Richard are instrumental in the elaborate scheme to save her from the gallows. Clarissa's part includes incapacitating a hangman and a U.S. Marshall on the road to Plymouth so that Fennel and Bean can pretend to be them. In the end, Clarissa and Jacky meet again at Dovecote, and solidify their respect for one another. Category:Characters Category:Female Characters Category:Major Characters